The inventor gives background of the invention as known to him, as follows:
"No brick saw that is known to the inventor has been surrounded by a cabinet or container like that of this invention, especially a brick saw container with all of these advantages to the brick saw, the operator, contractor and the job site. Brick saws have been used for many years. Some earlier saws were used for dry cutting only with a carborundum blade. Later, the industry produced wet-cutting saws using a diamond blade. After some time, it was prohibited to dry cut on some jobs because of the dust factor. The present saws use water and by rotation of the saw blades throw a lot of water in the surrounding area. Because of this on a lot of jobs, saws are placed in the outside of the building being constructed. The brick saws' motors are waterproof so the practice is to cover the 220-120 volt switch and water pump only. This brick saw container will eliminate most hazards. As a result of surrounding the brick saw with a container according to this invention, the container backsplash, water spray collector and shields will contain most of the water sprayed by the saw blade and return the water to the bottom of the base pan. This brick saw container has a fine mesh screen basket which the water pump sits in and recycles the strained water to either the wet cutting diamond blade or the carborundum or diamond blade through tubes, thus diverting the flow to either tube by turning a three-way valve which closes one side or the other. The back splash will hold the three way valve. It will hold a cover over the 220-120 volts receptacle, making the electricity apparatus water-proof. It will have a clip for grounding saw and back splash to eliminate all possible electric shock after it is wired to a ground. None of these features is believed to be now used in the brick saw operations. The pump is either in a barrel, or in the brick saw well which is a poor arrangement.
Saw operators often have to stop work to clean out the lines because the lines get clogged up with the cutting particles of material they are cutting, such as glazed tile, spectra glaze, concrete blocks, bricks, etc. The diamond blade is made to cut with a full flow of water but these particles get in the lines and the operator does not notice that his water is getting restricted more and more and therefore it will take longer to cut the material, and wear out the blade faster. On jobs where the law will not allow dry cutting on account of the dust factor, my system would alloy the spray of water to dampen most of the dust and prevent escape to the atmosphere. Shielding will stop spray from going to the motor and also hold the half-moon spray for dry cutting. As will be seen, the back shield is stationary while the front shield will move back and forth under the back shield as the saw arm goes up and down. The water spray collectors of the container will take care of the spray that bounces off the cutting table, also the drippings from the cutting table and take it back to the bottom of the pan. The two water spray collectors at the side are easily removed if a cut has to be made further than sixteen inches from the end of any material, for example, to a concrete lintel or a marble sill, or the like. If the bottom of the pan is higher than the foot pedal of the saw, the saw will be raised in the water pan to allow pedal to move up and down freely. The moving saw-table and all below it will sit under the shields. The back shield has a hole in it for the tube that goes to the dry cutting spray nozzle and also a slot in it for the connection bar to pass through so it can connect to the pedal to the saw which is above the shields. This operates the blade up and down, as needed.
It will be appreciated that now there are some small table model brick saws which would mean that this brick saw container would be modified by eliminating the provisions for dry cutting, making unit considerable smaller in size. There are also larger brick saws and this container would have to be made larger. There are smaller smaller models of standing brick saws that might not use the shields, or for which the shields must be relocated, but in some cases this brick saw container will apply."